One of the most interesting things about Jeffrey Biegel's music career is that he was deaf until the age of 3.

"You know, it's so funny - so many years went by, I never even thought about it." Biegel says, who didn't really think twice about the condition until a reporter asked him about it mid-interview years ago. "It wasn't total deafness, but the eardrums weren't vibrating because of fluid build-up. My parents took me to a series of doctors and I had surgery - I guess they poked the eardrum."

He might have forgotten the entire thing if it weren't for a vivid memory of an out-of-body experience during the surgery. Regardless, after that Biegel took to the piano with a passion that certainly made up for lost time. He began lessons at age seven, and by 16 he was enrolled at the Juilliard School.

Biegel will be performing with the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra for their Pastoral Symphony concert on May 18 and 19. He will be the featured pianist for both Franz Liszt's Piano Concerto as well as the "Millennium Fantasy" by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, the latter of which Biegel had commissioned by organizing a consortium of classical orchestras.

"Ellen was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in music, and I thought she'd be a good composer for this music," Biegel says. His plan was to celebrate the beginning of the 21st Century with a newly commissioned piano concerto that would be performed in each state across the country. "I contacted her and told her what I was doing and what I wanted to do. I gave it the title, but it gave her something to go with. The word "fantasy" - you can do so many things. She decided to cross the centuries, from the past to the future."

In the end, 27 orchestras in 25 states delivered, which was still more than enough to make it the largest consortium of orchestras ever assembled to commission an original work.

Biegel has since organized commissions for new works by composers like Charles Strouse, Lowell Liebermann and William Bolcom, and collaborated again with Zwilich on a work which Biegel titled "Shadows."

Biegel's approach as the "catalyst" behind these commissioned pieces as well as the soloist has gotten easier over the years, with e-mail and Kickstarter funding connecting groups across the country and allowing them to take ownership in developing new classical works.

But he's also done some arranging himself, such as when he helped flesh out the piano part for Neil Sedaka's "Manhattan Intermezzo." Biegel and Sedaka met through mutual friend and music producer David Foster, and both were instructed by Adele Marcus at Juilliard - and as fate would have it, both men perform in the midstate this weekend.

"Neil said 'I'm writing my piano concerto, I'll let you know when it's finished,'" Biegel says. "When he called me back and said 'It's finished, want to see it?' I said 'See it? I want to play it!'"

Biegel also collaborated on an arrangement for Billy Joel's music with, who else? HSO conductor Stuart Malina. "It's called 'Symphonic Fantasies' - and this one, Stuart gave it the title!" says Biegel. "Stuart and I have known each other for 15 years, and it's always a very fulfilling time spent with Stuart. We just have a wonderful friendship that extends through making music."

And though he loves innovative new compositions, pop music and Broadway standards, Biegel's heart remains with the great standards of classical music. His latest album, "A Grand Romance," features music from what he calls the "golden age of the piano," and is a tribute to the work of Josef Lhevinne, who was the instructor for Adele Marcus.

All of these elements will be found in Biegel's performance this weekend, which will be the first professional orchestra performance of "Millennium Fantasy" outside of the original commissioning orchestras. "In some ways, she brings out sounds for the piano that pianists composers might not do," he says of Zwilich. "The piano becomes an orchestra instrument in ["Millennium Fantasy"]."